Tag Archives: Humor

I believe that this is a terrible game and that I can count only on better games to come. Therefore, I believe in liquor, hard liquor.

I believe in sarcasm, which gives me the ability sit through an afternoon of bad football.

I believe Vern and Gary need to retire, without which I cannot continue to watch football on CBS.

I believe that if I eat enough chips and dip that I can slip into a food coma and forget an entire game before it has even ended.

I believe in a fence or hedge around a field because it protects the lives of the coaches from drunk fans.

I believe the players on my television can hear me, therefore I will continue to scream at them, as well as the coaches.

I believe in my team, because they continue to play their hearts out even when it seems like all is lost, and even when armchair coaches like me are slamming drinks, shoving chips in their face, and screaming obscenities at Gary when he criticizes all of college football during plays under review.

And because Auburn men and women believe in these things, I believe in Auburn and love it.

**Originally penned as a Facebook status during the Auburn loss to LSU on 09.19.15

Stop. Just stop.
Just a thought: if you aren’t happy with your appearance, don’t take and post selfies that you have “edited” using free photo enhancing apps on your cellphone. You do realize that the only person you’re fooling is that kid from second grade who moved to Japan to play the cello in the Japanese National Orchestra and hasn’t seen you since 1984, right?
One of my friends and I send each other ugly selfies almost daily. Nothing breaks the monotony of waiting for a pap smear like getting a text from a friend with a selfie of herself with veins bulging from her neck and looking all pop eyed. Especially when the doctor walks in and you’re still laying there with your gown on backwards giggling. Anyway, she and I also like to grab photos of people from our Facebook friends who have clearly enhanced their selfies, and send them to one another. If only it weren’t a sad cometary on how our culture is so obsessed with portraying an image and persona on social media that isn’t even mildly representative of our real life, then I could laugh about these photos even more. The point is, girls, that you think we all think you really look like that, but in reality, we saw you at Winn-Dixie yesterday, and you didn’t have a halo behind you and deep, baby-blue eyes.
Back when I was a kid, I used to watch this show named Moonlighting. It starred a former, aging Cover Girl named Cybill Shepherd and a little known guy with a receding hairline named Bruce Willis. Every single time Cybill was in the frame by herself, a soft glow lens was used. Look, I wasn’t there. I don’t know if they filmed her with her own special camera, or if they just fluffed her up in editing, but it became so damn distracting that I couldn’t even watch the show. Bruce Willis: normal. Cybill Shepherd: moonlight glow. Back and forth, back and forth. It drove me crazy! Now I realize it was the 80s, but I’m willing to bet that ABC had better editing equipment in their California studios than your cellphone does, even if you do have an iPhone 6. So if ABC couldn’t fool me when I was ten, what makes you think you can fool us with your own hazy shade of Photoshop?
The thing with phone editing apps is that they aren’t really photo editing programs. Trust me, Anna Wintour isn’t sitting behind her desk at Condé Nast fluffing up the next cover with an Instagram filter. These filters apply a specific look to the entire photograph. It’s not like you can go in and streamline your waist like a seasoned artist. You can crop the photo to cut off part of your arm so you don’t look so big (yep, I do that one all the time, can’t help myself, I have Oprah arms), but you can’t pick and choose portions of the image to enhance. The other day I saw some girl’s selfie and it had so much softening filter on it that she looked like Voldemort. Hello!!! You managed to erase your giant zit, but you also don’t have a freaking nose!!! That’s not normal, people!
Make up. Oh, sweet Mary and Joseph, let’s talk about make up. If you have a phone app that puts make up on your selfies, for the love of all things holy, please delete it. Right now. Go ahead. I’ll sit here and wait. If you don’t care enough to put a coat of paint on the barn, then don’t digitally do it in the pictures. And whatever you do, don’t add it to the other people in the photo. Unless you just ran a color run, chances are there will not be any bright pink color on your face after a marathon. Seriously, you just puked on the concrete in front of God and everybody. Don’t be trying to fool your Facebook friends into thinking you look refreshed and pink lipped after you just ran farther in one day than I’ve ever run every single day in my entire life combined. And if you wear glasses, um, if you put eyeliner on digitally, it will be ON TOP of your glasses. We can see that. We know it’s fake. Stop it.
I guess what I want to say is embrace yourself. Be who you are. Be proud. But if you decide you don’t really like your looks but want to continue to take photos of yourself anyway and filter them before posting them on Facebook, don’t get pissy with me when I see you in public and have NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE because you don’t have Clorox white teeth and floating orbs of radiant light floating about your head.

I have a varsity letter for cheerleading. I dead-lifted 155 lbs for time at CrossFit. I own really nice running shoes. And I’ve watched two whole seasons of So You Think You Can Dance. So how hard can it be to wiggle around to some music? So hard that today, I came to the realization that I will never, ever, even remotely, be considered cool. Hell, cool probably isn’t even cool anymore. Now it’s sick. Or maybe sick was yesterday’s term. I’ll tell you what’s really sick. Sick is that Zumba crap. And I don’t mean sick like cool. I mean sick like you’d have to be out of your ever loving mind to want to try that stuff once you’ve hit the back side of forty.

Back to my demise of cool. It started when I would joke with a young waitress and she would fake laugh like I was witty and scurry off to get me another diet Coke. I figured she just didn’t get the joke, right? Then, one day I made a clever comment to a few college age kids at a gas station. I honestly think I saw one of them roll their eyes. Seriously? I am cool. I do not look my age. I can still do the splits. I’ve even got rap music with explicit lyrics in my iTunes. But today was the final epiphany. Today, sobbing in the parking lot of the community center, it finally hit me: I am my mother’s age. I will never be cool again. I am old.

What brought me to this stark realization? Zumba. Actually, it wasn’t even Zumba, because this class doesn’t bother with the licensing fees. It was “dance fitness.” I got my ass handed to me by something called dance fitness. Oh, I hear you, sister. It took you two months before you could get all of the choreography. I’m catching your drift; it was the hardest thing to figure out that body roll. But here’s the thing: I didn’t leave dance fitness six minutes into the class because I felt like I couldn’t physically handle the grueling arm movements. No, this class gave me a mental beat down.

I would describe to you in length the intricate series of kicks and flicks and popping and locking that was going on all around me in dance fitness, but it would only underline my ever loosening grasp on the modern world. This body roll thingy? Honey, rolls go on a plate. If a roll is going to be a part of my body, it’s going to be from the inside out in the form of cellulite. My body rolls hang over the top of my pants. They peek out from beneath the backside of my bra strap. They are not part of any sort of rhythmic or graceful movement. And this pelvic thrust action with coordinating arm movements? Listen, I’ve got two kids, and a stork didn’t leave them on my door-step. I have been privy to some pelvic thrusting in my day. But not in front of a giant mirror and six other spandex clad thrusters. It’s awkward when I’m watching TV with my kids and the dance to Greased Lightning from Grease comes on. Do you really think I’m going to jerk my baby maker back and forth with clenched fists at my side in front of God and everybody? I don’t think so.

I went to the Zumba website, just to take a look. Maybe I was looking for a chat room where I could find some sort of support group for Zumba drop outs. You know what I found? They had the nerve to describe their “fitness-parties” as “easy to follow.” Well, turn out the lights, that party is over. Maybe I should have dipped into the kids’ ADHD meds before I went, because I was totally lost. Better yet, maybe I should have brought some for the instructor because as soon as I would get one part of my body moving the same way hers was, she would totally change what she was doing! It would be like asking your grandmother to climb Mt. Everest and just about the time she’s making it to the top you yell, “Never mind, Grandma, we’re going to climb this mountain over here instead!”

So if you’re wondering where you’ll find me in the morning, it won’t be at dance fitness. I’ll be somewhere totally uncool like drinking coffee and talking about the weather, or at the Piggly Wiggly buying some Activia. This old broad won’t be shaking her way into shape. Sign me up for Silver Sneakers. I’ll go sit on a folding chair and do arm curls with 12 ounce cans of vegetable soup.

Far be it from me to gripe about anything, but as long as we’re talking about how hot it is outside, let me just tell you how hot it really is. My trusty Camry has been in the shop for several days now, and I’m fortunate enough that my parents are letting me borrow the “farm truck.” The farm truck is a navy blue 1990 Isuzu Rodeo that my sister bought when she was in law school many, many moons ago. When she became an adult and got a real car, the Rodeo went to where vehicles go to die; our family farm. Flash forward about twenty years and five billion degrees and here you have me, driving the farm truck around town, with no air conditioning.

Now if you happen to be reading this above the Mason-Dixon Line and think you know what hot is; you don’t. Hot is walking around barefoot on fresh, black asphalt holding a large piece of metal on a highway that runs directly on the invisible line of the equator. Now add six gallons of boiling split-pea soup to account for the humidity. Take all of that, shove it in a pint size Ziploc bag and throw it in the microwave for sixty seconds. Now you have what it feels like in Alabama on any given day in June around 9:30 a.m. Take the bag out of the microwave and immediately open it with your bare hands, and you’ll have what it feels like by 9:45 a.m.

Anyway, when I dropped my Camry off at the mechanic’s shop and picked up the farm truck, I was just happy to have something to drive. The kids were in the back, we had the windows rolled down and I was raising my hands and bouncing up and down, “No air. Don’t care.” Let me tell you, that didn’t last long enough for my boys to finish rolling their eyes.
Imagine a metal box filled with coal.
Now imagine it on wheels.
Now imagine that it is on fire.
Now drive it.
Mother of all things holy, the only thing less ventilated than a 1990 Isuzu Rodeo is a gas chamber.

Ever the optimist, I decided to make driving the rolling convection oven fun. And what screams fun more than a sing-a-long!?! So if you happen to pass me on the road and I’m actually still lucid enough to maintain brain function, I will be singing my own version of the sort-of hit song, No Air, by American Idol winner, Jordan Sparks, and World Welterweight Champion, Chris Brown. If you’d like to sing along with me, you may find the karaoke version of the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ESPjnsWJQY and my personalized lyrics below:

“No Air”

Tell me how I’m supposed to drive with no air

If my car stays in the shop
I’ll get so hot that I may drop
It’s nice to have something to drive around but damn
Oh

My hair looks like it is half wet
Shirt is stained with under-boob sweat
Wish there was a way that I could turn on a fan

But how do you expect me
to drive around stuck to the seat
‘Cause my world revolves around air
It’s so hard for me to breathe

[Chorus:]
Tell me how I’m supposed to drive with no air
Can’t smile, can’t live with no air
Can’t wear makeup when there isn’t air
It’s no air, no air
Got me out here in humidity
Tell me how I’m gonna be lookin’ pretty
If there ain’t air, I just can’t be
It’s no air, no air

No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No air, air

I walked, I ran, I jumped, I swam
Tried to forget the heat but damn
The South’s hotter than hell in mid-July

But somehow I’m still holding the wheel
Foot on the gas, burning my heel
Praying for wind, that will keep me alive

So how do you expect me
to drive around in this heat
‘Cause my real car is broken down
I’m stuck driving this big heap

[Chorus]

No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No more
It’s no air, no air

[Chorus]

No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No air, air

Tell me how I’m supposed to drive with no air
Can’t eat, can’t sleep with no air
It’s how I feel whenever there’s no air
It’s no air, no air

Got me out here in the Rodeo
In the shade it’s one hundred and fo’
If there ain’t air, I can’t even go
It’s no air, no air

No air, air
No air, air
No air, air
No air

It may not be swanky, but it gets the job done. Unless the job is staying cool.

In the wake of the Zimmerman trial, I have seen articles from respected news forums about teens being slaughtered for having a Free Zimmerman bumper sticker on their car and a Hispanic man being beaten “for Trayvon.” These reports have been further investigated and have been exposed as false. But I saw the article on Facebook. One of my college educated friends shared it. It must be true, right? The sky is falling and many are blaming mainstream media sensationalism.

Can you blame them? I like to get my news from E!, personally, but you can’t walk into a coffee shop or waiting room without pretty, polished talking heads discussing the latest trial. They have countdown tickers at the bottom of the screen with the hours until the verdict is anticipated. They have forums to argue what the defendant should have worn to court. They profile the attorneys. They analyze juror reactions. They interview neighbors, old girlfriends, cousins-once-removed and fifth-grade teachers. And none of this stops when the verdict is reached.

I argue that it is not the mainstream media that perpetuates a legacy of stupidity, but it is social media that creates a frenzy of ignorance. Let us first agree that people who take the law into their own hands and perpetuate violence in the name of justice are ignorant people. Sure, they may be passionate. They may even be dynamic. But the bottom line is; they are ignorant. I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of these ignorant folks didn’t spend the bulk of their week watching continual trial coverage on HLN. Instead they saw a “news article” that one of their buddies shared on Facebook or a retweet of their favorite reality star’s “official” Twitter account.

It is so easy for us to hit Like or Retweet or Share anything and everything. With the slightest touch of a finger, we perpetuate false information. We copy and paste quotes from articles via The Onion like they came from CNN. And even more scary is that this same internet is being used by college interns to sort the facts from the fiction before head writers and producers plant the information in front of the anchor or into the field reporter’s ear.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of social media. My addiction to Twitter, Facebook and now Snap Chat is only rivaled by my dependence on diet sodas mid-morning and white wine at bedtime. The thing is, I earned a college degree back in the stone ages when you had to actually go to a library and open a book. There was no internet. If you googled someone back then, you’d probably get slapped in the face. But even then, a cursory glance around the fraternity social would make it painfully obvious that the world is peopled with idiots. The only difference was, if we wanted to create mass hysteria, we had to get out a phone book and call all of our friends individually and hope to God we didn’t get a busy signal. It took days to plan what we would do on a Friday night and where the hell we’d meet. Heaven forbid you get the time wrong. You’d never figure out where everybody was!

Now don’t get all riled up and think I’m being mean to the younger generations. As hard as I had it in college, at least I didn’t have to walk to school in the snow, up hill both ways like my parents did. I could go on and on about how today’s college kids are more active and proactive in the direction of their own lives, our country and our world; due in large part to social media. (For instance, did you know that young Libyans organized their revolt and eventual eradication of Gaddafi via Twitter? It’s true. Google it.) It’s not just my younger counterparts who are oozing virtual oafishness. Out of my 900+ Facebook friends, it’s hard to find more than a handful of thoughtful, intelligent posts on any given day, and this likelihood decreases exponentially during football season. Sometimes, it is the older generation that leads the charge toward mindlessness. It’s called Snopes, Grandma. And if you don’t know how to use Photoshop, then you probably shouldn’t share a bunch of really unbelievable pictures that you saw on Facebook.

If Betty Sue came to your house and told you that your mother had lost her leg in a freak price check incident at the Piggly Wiggly, you’d probably pick up the phone and call your mama to make sure she was okay. But if Betty Sure posted an article on FaceBook about mutant monkeys holding twelve hostage at a Wal-Mart in Tuscaloosa, fourteen people would share it coupled with their non-spell-checked commentary on the state of our world due to Obama (if you’re South of Atlanta) or Paula Deen (if you’re North of West Virginia). Is it really too much to ask that we think for 3.4 seconds before we click Like, Share or Retweet? Far be it from me to tell anyone how to live, but if you give more thought to what you want on your pizza than you do the articles, images and statements that you are exhibiting to the world as a representation of the person that you are; then you are doing it wrong.

Over the past few years, I suppose I’ve had my fair share of antics, and every now and again, I’m even told that I should have my own reality show. But to date, Andy Cohen hasn’t called me, so I’ve devoted my time to running a small boutique. I think I’m at least as interesting as the Real Housewives and maybe even the Jersey Shore people, but still – no television show. Now that I’ve thought about it, I have decided the problem isn’t me, per se, the issue is that I don’t ever get punched in the face. It seems like more fights break out on reality TV shows than at hockey games, so that must be the crucial missing element to my life. The issue this poses for me is that I will more than likely never be punched in the face. Why, you ask? Because I’m Southern, and Southern girls don’t get punched in the face. Seriously. They don’t. So in an effort to explain why I don’t have my own reality television show, here are the top five reasons Southern girls rarely, if ever, get punched in the face.

Southern girls don’t talk badly about people. Oh, we talk, but we don’t say anything bad. For instance, Olivia may leave the Gatsby and head to a bar with friends. While there, she may see one of her arch enemies and decide to speak badly about said nemesis. Southern girls; we just don’t do that. Our Mamas taught us if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all. We would never flat out say that some girl was a fat cow. First and foremost, that girl is most assuredly friends with a chick named Karma, and we have no desire to meet up with her in a dark alley. Therefore, we would simply and nicely say something like, “I declare, if it doesn’t look like Stephanie accidentally tripped and swallowed a washing machine, bless her heart.” You see, poor Stephanie isn’t fat. Oh, no! She just looks fat. And we are just calling a spade a spade; and there is nothing mean or malicious about pointing out the obvious. We are more than happy to help out others by making excuses for them such as, “It must be that time of the month, God love her, as she looks swole up something awful.” A mean girl would never cut a rival slack like that and help justify their portly appearance. That’s why they get punched in the face.

All groups of Southern girls – yes, Southern girls travel in groups – have at least one member who look like they accidentally tripped and swallowed a washing machine. She is usually the funny one with a cute face that everyone clamors over and wants to stand next to in group pictures. Have you ever heard of one of those trainers at Sea World getting involved in a riot and getting punched in the face? Of course not. And do you know why that is? Because they hang out with Shamu. And nobody messes with Shamu. Did that Sea World trainer look at your boyfriend funny? Did she accidentally knock over your bar stool? That’s okay. No worries. Let it go! Why? Because she’s standing next to Shamu, that’s why.

Southern girls carry guns. That’s right, guns. Not mace or pepper spray or Tasers or Duct tape (although we usually have some of that, too), but guns. And we actually carry them. We don’t leave them in our purse, or store them in the glove box of the car, or put them on the top shelf of our closet; we carry them in sleek, form-fitting holsters that fit right into the back waistband of our designer jeans. There is one in the chamber and plenty more in the clip, and we use high quality hollow point bullets. Only the best for us, baby, and we have a spare clip ready so we don’t ever find ourselves in that terrible position by which we break a freshly manicured nail because we had to reload in haste. Now, do you know anyone who would intentionally take a fist to a gun fight? I didn’t think so.

Southern girls know how to handle drunk assholes. Now, I promised my Daddy I would try not to cuss so much, but dammit, there is no other word for some of these people. See, if you’re a girl it is inevitable that at some point in your life you will get hit on by a non-desirable. Your chances increase greatly if the guy is drunk, and your chances seriously increase if you are Southern. I’d like to say we don’t get punched in the face because the world is filled with chivalrous gentlemen, but considering there is a well- known saying, “Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince,” this is just not statistically feasible. The thing is, a Southern girl would never yell at some guy to get his filthy hands off of her when he grabs her arm and says something like, “I bet you could really heat things up if you took off that dress.” We would politely tilt our chin down and look up at him through our lashes and smile as we respond, “Oh, Honey, I assure you, when I take my pistol out and help you meet the devil, you’re going to be so hot you won’t be able to handle it.” Guys dig honey coated speech, regardless of what is being said. And drunk, stupid guys are usually too distracted by the lashes and the pad of our index finger at the top of their collar as we give them a shove backward that the morons don’t even realize they are getting turned down. Therefore, we get hit on, but never hit.

In the South, everybody knows your Mama. I don’t care if you work at Wal-Mart or own the bank, if you’re from the South; everybody knows your Mama. They have gone to Sunday School with her for 47 years, or they play bridge with her at the Club, or somebody once dropped a big stack of mail in front of the post office and your Mama jumped out of her car and helped them pick it all up. But trust me; somewhere, somehow, some way – everybody knows your Mama. If you think for one instance that you can punch a poor, sweet Southern Girl in the face and her Mama won’t know about it before your hand finishes it’s follow-through, you are sorely mistaken. And the only thing worse than a woman scorned is a crossed up Southern Mama whose little darling doodle-pie just got punched in the face. She will bring the full fury of hell upon you in front of God and everybody, and then when she is done; she will call your own Mama and tell her to come pick you up.

So in summary, I’ve never been punched in the face and I don’t have a reality show. But not to despair; I know over 47 analogies for fat people, I’ve got a great group of friends, a swell pistol, fantastic eyelashes and everybody knows my Mama.

Okay, fine. After much urging, I finally watched the viral video sensation, Rebecca Black (on mute), and I don’t have enough hours in the night to tell you all of my thoughts, but I will give you a few of them.

1) The pencil sketch portion at the beginning made me think about when Japanimation cartoons first aired in the US and all these little American kids started having epileptic seizures because of all of the rapid movement and the flashing of the television screen. In fact, I think at one point when Rebecca Black is “dancing” she is actually having a seizure. Her parents may want to have her checked out by their family physician. Better safe than sorry.

2) The Blacks should have spent a little extra cash on a stylist. This girl is one animal sweater away from looking exactly like Rachel Berry from Glee, and although Rachel (Lea Michele) can sing, she gets a slushy in the face at least once a week – she’s not exactly who you want to emulate in the trendy outfit category.

3) Do those kids have on seat belts in the convertible? Aren’t there seat belt laws? And is it odd to anyone other than me that every girl in the car has a mole on her face? I don’t know if I know anyone with a mole on their face. Well, I know one person. And then there’s Sarah Jessica Parker, but she had hers removed, so she doesn’t count. How does this chick know two other girls with moles on their faces? I wonder if they live near a nuclear power plant.

3) Now I’m pretty sure it is illegal to ride down the road sitting up on the back of a convertible; unless you are traveling at parade speed…and you’re actually in a parade. Did she pick girls with braces to flank her to add extra sparkle? Did they intentionally find two girls that had even less dancing ability than Rebecca so that she would look better? They keep doing this twisting while remaining rigid move that reminds me of the agitator in the clothes washer. Is it possible that everyone Rachel Berry, I mean Rebecca Black, knows is prone to seizures?

4) Is that a real rapper? Is he in this video because he’s doing community service? Is he driving a Chrysler? How did the kids get the convertible and the rapper get the LeBaron?

5) What happened to hanging out in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot? Where is this party? We didn’t have parties like this when I was 13. And we sure as hell didn’t wear sequins to them. Why did all those kids leave their headlights on? Don’t they know they’re going to run down the batteries?

6) Where is this dark room where Rebecca is all alone with her red and purple lights and smoke machine? It’s just creepy. I can almost hear the director saying something like, “You don’t have to do anything more than you’re comfortable with, Rebecca.” I feel like I need a shower now. Maybe I should have watched this with the volume on. This is just pure uncomfortable in silence.

I’ve got to stop. I’m getting a headache. I think I may have a seizure of my own if I think about this anymore. Thank goodness I watched the video on mute. If I actually had this song stuck in my head, it is quite possible that I may do myself bodily harm. I would like to say, however, that it is pretty apropos that she’s “dancing” under a weeping willow tree in the end of the video. If this is what our culture now embraces as real talent/entertainment, it should be more than the tree weeping.